


Kith and Kin

by SirJosephBanksFRS



Category: Aubrey-Maturin Series - Patrick O'Brian
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-04-12
Packaged: 2018-01-19 02:49:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1452679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirJosephBanksFRS/pseuds/SirJosephBanksFRS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Returning from Ireland, Stephen Maturin finds the prospects for the realisation of his plans for his future to be far less concrete and defined than he had supposed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kith and Kin

**Woolcombe**  
**10 May 1820**

  
A solemn Brigid Maturin came into Admiral Aubrey's study where she had been summoned and closed the door behind her. He looked up at her and fought hard to restrain a smile, assuming a somewhat stern visage though he could not repress the sparkle in his bright blue eyes. He indicated the chair next to his own.

"Come and sit down, Brigid, my dear. I fear that we have a problem. It seems that the butcher will not deliver to Woolcombe. Do you know why?"

"Yes, sir," the little girl said, looking him straight in the eye. Her eyes were exactly like Stephen's in expression, Jack thought, but with Diana's fire. What spirit the child had, she knew she had done wrong but she was clearly unashamed, clearly ready to be held responsible for her behaviour.

"Will you tell me why, if you please?"

"Because yesterday I struck the butcher's boy in the village with my riding crop."

"Why would you do such a thing?"

"Because he was beating the horse, poor old Bess, because she was too tired to move, beating her until her blood ran. She was screaming in pain and so I could do nothing else, Admiral, to make him stop," Brigid said and in that moment, Jack Aubrey shivered, for he had never seen the child so much a perfect amalgam of her father and mother, all of Diana’s completely fearless spirit and Stephen’s capacity for furious rage when provoked. He thought she must have been a sight truly terrifying to behold, an enraged seven year old girl, thrashing the butcher's boy with her crop from her seat upon her pony. Padeen had been forced to drag her off her pony and she had cried in fury in his arms as they rode all the way back to Woolcombe.

“I see. Brigid, this will not do. This will never do. Young ladies do not go around thrashing people in the village, no matter what the cause. There is something called the order of command, have you heard of it?” Brigid admitted that she had. “You should have gone to the butcher and told him. The butcher’s boy is answerable to him, he would have disciplined him. Or you might have come to me and I would have clapped a stopper on his antics.” Brigid said nothing. “Now, I allow as Peter Warwick, for that is his name, is what we call a scrub, Brigid, a very vile young man, but, still, it is not permissible for you to thrash him with your crop. In any case, my dear, you must go and apologise to the butcher and to Peter Warwick.” Brigid’s face turned virtually white.

“I am sorry, Admiral, but I cannot,” she said very quietly. He looked at her and sighed.

“Brigid, you must call me Cousin Jack or even just Jack, for we are far too close friends for you to call me Admiral when it is just the two of us together talking, my dear. A very great man was on my ship once and he was outraged by what he felt was the abuse of one of my crewman by my first lieutenant during punishment. He interfered with the man’s punishment and spoke very sharply to my lieutenant, believing himself entirely in the right on moral principle. But that is not the way things are done in the Navy and I had to ask him to make an apology, even though he believed he had done nothing wrong, indeed, that he had acted as any decent man might feel he must act. And he did apologise to my lieutenant and offered to apologise on the quarterdeck before everyone on the ship. Do you know who that very great, wise and learned man was?” Brigid shook her head. “It was your papa. Now, I allow that what you did was understandable, entirely understandable. I hate to see a brute beating a defenceless animal and I would have reviled him in the harshest terms myself, had I been there. But, my dear child, there is no way that you can go to the village and thrash anyone. You are lucky that they did not call for a constable or the sheriff’s man. Do you understand?” Brigid nodded. “I will take you there myself, to the butcher and you will apologise and then we shall go for a very long ride if you wish. Is that agreeable?”

“May Padeen come as well?”

“Of course.” She looked at the floor and nodded. “We do not want anyone to say poor little Brigid Maturin has atrocious manners because she was raised by a passel of ignorant sailormen, even if you were given very great provocation. Now run and change into your habit and we may go as soon as you are ready. I shall call Padeen,” Jack said and he leaned forward, kissing her forehead. “Go now.” She left and he leaned back in his chair and laughed. No, it was not droll, it was a very serious matter but seeing the spit and image of an irate seven year old Stephen Maturin as a very pretty little girl with blonde ringlets before him was too much for Jack and he had no one with whom to share the observation. Sophie was not at home and she would not find it humorous in the least. Brigid was so very much like the both of her parents that it astonished him that she had not thrashed anyone else before this. She was as much a horse lover as Diana had been and was well on her way to being a prodigious horsewoman, riding far better than either of his own daughters. He only wished Stephen were there so Jack could regale him with the story of how his just turned seven year daughter had beaten a fifteen year old bully and made him weep.

 

  
  
**London**

**17 May 1820**

 

Stephen Maturin returned to London from Dublin after eight weeks sojourn there, returned to the city, where his friends, Edward Hatherleigh and Edward’s sister, Christine Wood, Stephen’s would be fiancée had taken a house together on Hill Street at Berkeley Square, choosing to spend the winter and spring in town and the summer and fall in the country. Stephen had gone home to his room at the Grapes, shifted into more respectable clothes than what Jack Aubrey called his “travelling rig” and then set off to call upon Number 36 Hill Street, quite close to where he and Diana had lived on Half Moon Street, during what seemed many ages ago.

The maid let him in, took his greatcoat and ushered him into the sitting room, where Christine sat by the fire reading. Edward was still out and Stephen put aside the parcel of Irish winter wren specimens that he had brought with him for Edward’s examination. He sat next to Christine and they had coffee, brought by the kitchen maid and chatted about the weather, how unseasonably cold the spring was that year and how migratory patterns of birds had been affected in Britain and Ireland.

After his initial rejection in Sierra Leone, Stephen had never again formally made an offer of marriage to Christine; there had been no explicit understanding reached between them. The time they had spent together on and off since his returning from Chile in the last two years, the duel he had engaged in on her behalf and Christine's general sympathy and affection for him had given him great confidence and so he turned, smiling, and took her hand in his.

"Christine, my dear, I thought that this is a particularly opportune moment for us to wed, in a week's time, as we might take a honeymoon in Barcelona, leaving Portsmouth in the end of May," Stephen said. She looked down and did not meet his eyes and his heart sank. "Is such an arrangement not to your liking? Is it too soon for you to adequately plan? Or would you prefer to wed in the country?" He would not press the issue of a marriage within the Church; he was resigned that it was quite hopeless and it mattered very little to him at this point. Unlike Diana, Christine would never desert him for parts unknown, of that he was quite certain.

"Dearest Stephen," Christine said and stopped. Finally she looked up into his face. "I am, truly, so very fond of you and I esteem you so very highly. There is no one who possesses more of my affection than you. I enjoy your company so much. I enjoy being with you and with you with Edward. I am very fond of Jack and Sophia Aubrey and of course, dear, dear Brigid. But I cannot marry you. I am very much attached to you, my dear, but solely as a friend. I am sorry. It was wholly wrong of me not to have given you this understanding before now, long before. Pray forgive me,“ she said and she pulled her hand from his, reached into her pocket and took his hand and laid his Breguet watch he had given her in Sierra Leone into his palm.

"No, oh, no, Christine, no, no, my dear," he protested, utterly appalled at the gesture. "It is yours, dear joy. I replaced it long ago." She laid it upon the table.

"Stephen, I consider you a very dear friend, one of my dearest. I do not wish to break with you. That is not my intention, not in any way. But I cannot in any fairness allow you to entertain any further matrimonial idea toward me. The reason does not lie within you, my dear, I give you my sacred word it is not you. If I were to marry anyone, it should be you. In my heart, still, I have no desire to be any man's wife, ever again. I am very happy keeping house with my brother and seeing you whenever it is that you return from your travels with the Admiral or wheresoever you might roam. I am blissfully happy to be home, to naturalise in Britain for the rest of my days. Edward and I are now working together on a folio of the ptarmigan in Scotland. We are both so very fond of you and our house will always be open to you."

"We need not marry now, not if you do not wish it. Forgive me, Christine, I spoke out of turn," Stephen said.

"No," Christine said. "Pray forgive me, Stephen. I should have said this long, long ago. I have dreaded in anticipation of this conversation and so I have been inexcusably remiss. I will never marry anyone ever again: not you, not anyone, not ever."

"Why this declaration now, my dearest soul? Have I offended you by pressing the issue? Did I give offense? If so, I humbly ask your pardon. We need not be hasty. There is no rush, for all love."

"Stephen, my dear, dear Stephen, you asked me to marry you almost five years ago in Sierra Leone and I said no. You told me that you did not need an answer then and to consider of it. We have been the dearest of friends for these five years. You have brought me into the very bosom of your family and amongst your most intimate friends. Your friendship is extremely dear to me, but I do not want to marry you nor anyone else and I will not. If you persist in this, then I am afraid it will eventually result in a complete break between us because of hard feelings. I ask most civilly as your friend that we not mention marriage ever again, after today."

He was stunned into silence. It had never occurred to him that this proposal of what he had thought was surely inevitable would go so very wrong. He had already bought tickets for them to go to Barcelona, had already made honeymoon arrangements in Spain, both Barcelona and at his sheepwalk, El Rosselló.

"Have you  -- did you change your mind?" he said weakly, finally.

"When you came and saw me in Sierra Leone, I was exceedingly sensible as to your state, your very low state. Mrs Maturin had died very recently, as had my husband. I demurred as much as I might then, without being cruel to you. I was also exhilarated by your very welcome company, by that glorious day we spent together naturalising. I vacillated in my refusal only because of my very great affection and esteem for you. Now, I realise that I have been crueler still, without any intention whatever, that so many years have slipped by whilst you laboured under a misapprehension because of my apparent ambiguity. It was most selfish of me. I am so sorry that I will have grieved you so, Stephen. I do humbly beg your pardon. The fault lies entirely with me. I do not wish that you have any belief that if you had done something differently, that I would be of a different mind. I believe that I am not cut out to be any man’s wife.”

“But you were a man’s wife,” he said, impatiently and then regretted it.

“Very unhappily, I am afraid.”

“Christine, I understand your reluctance and I swear upon all that is holy that I should never press you in any way, press any familiarity upon you, marriage or no marriage. Surely, you have seen in the last five years that I am not that kind of a man, that never in life would I take any untoward liberty with you at all. Upon my soul, you must know that I would honour any sentiment that you have in that regard. Are deep friendship, esteem and mutual regard not the very best basis for any marriage?” She looked at him solemnly.

“You press me most unkindly, Stephen, for I feel you oblige me to discuss that which I would infinitely prefer remain unsaid.” He protested and she held her hand up. “To be most indelicate, I do not comprehend given the circumstances and eventualities that I confided in you over the years, quite to my own humiliation, why given what you know that you should wish us to be married, now or ever. You are telling me that nothing should change between us, that we should be the same as we are now, if I should so desire it. But at the same time, you very much wish that I become your wife and I do not understand to what end. There is no attraction for me in keeping house for you whilst you travel the world with the Admiral or go to Ireland and Spain. There is no reason why you cannot continue to stay with Edward and myself as our dear friend and guest, even the majority of the year, as opposed to my marrying you. There is no possible intimacy between us beyond what we already have known as friends. If I were to marry you, I would perpetually feel that I was responsible for denying you that most fundamental and cherished intimacy that husbands and wives enjoy. At its inception, our marriage would be tainted with a very great moral advantage of one over the other and that is no way for any friendship to last. I fear, indeed, that marriage inevitably would be the death of our friendship. The prospect for such a marriage to end unhappily is all too great, for I should feel obligated and then pressured and resentful or you should feel unfulfilled, rejected and unloved. In the case that I should make an attempt to do that which virtually all wives accept as part of the married state, if it should prove unbearable to me, how should you not bitterly resent me for it?  I would not marry any man under such circumstances and expect him to be remain attached to me perpetually. You are a man, after all. Your late wife, Diana, was a very beautiful woman, an exceedingly beautiful woman. Pray forgive me, but you cannot tell me that there is nothing of the lover in you, Stephen. Not with such a magnificently handsome wife as you had.” There were tears in his eyes. He looked down at the floor and then away. "Again, I humbly beg forgiveness from you. I am entirely in the wrong in this and now I have hurt you out of what was solely misplaced kindness and the greatest conceivable affection. I hope you may some day forgive me. I have wanted to make a clean breast of it for over two years," she said and she looked in her lap. He rose from the settee.

"Christine, I think it best that I go now, my dear. Do not apologise; no apology is required on your part, none at all. Pray do give my compliments to Edward." She stood up and walked with him to the door. The maid brought his coat and he put it on. Christine touched his shoulder and leaned forward, kissing his cheek. He blinked to push the tears from his eyes and bid her adieu and walked out into the cool London spring afternoon. Half a block from the house, he put his hand in his great coat pocket and found Pontet-Canet's Breguet that she had slipped in there.

 "Why does it matter so very much to me?" he thought walking slowly back to the Grapes. She was admittedly correct, that marriage as she would accept it was not so materially different from their friendship as it now stood. He was offering her a _mariage blanc_ with no conceivable reason for her to want such a thing, no conceivable advantage. She was quite comfortable, happy and secure. Her wealth was far less than his, but she lived modestly enough for a woman of considerable means and there was absolutely nothing she wanted that was beyond her grasp. His friendship was what he offered her, but she already possessed it. Yes, he had thought that she would come, in time, to actually seek out or at least not object to physical relations, for it was the most natural thing in the world; but he had spent nearly five years wooing her and they were no more physically intimate than he was with Sophia Aubrey, in some ways less, for Sophie was so very comfortable in his presence in a way that Christine had never been, despite their naked naturalising. He had lain with his head in Sophie's lap as she laughingly fed him grapes and he would never presume such a liberty with Christine.

What could possibly have come to pass to provoke such a sudden declaration? Had she some conversation, some discussion of the sexual act with someone? Did she have a friend who had recently experienced a difficult pregnancy or catastrophic parturition? Or perhaps a female complaint had manifested in her as of late, making the prospect  of marital relations even more unwelcome? Clearly, it was foremost in her thoughts, her extreme distaste at the idea of it. He had never seen a woman recover from similarly aversive experiences, not a gentlewoman, in any case. Her uneasiness was palpable, he thought, and it was that uneasiness that must have sent her skittering like a horse with a stable vice, balking at being led out into bright sunshine at his inopportune suggestion of an immediate wedding. Clearly, it was insensitive of him to not broach the entire topic far more delicately and he would not make that mistake again.

Intelligence agent -- he scoffed -- some capital intelligence agent he had just proven himself, when she had manifestly outlined her aversion and it origins towards ever entering into the married state again and his penetration of her current state was so inadequate as to have made this blundering, foolhardy proposal. Christine Wood was not Diana Villiers. Yes, the fondness was there, the friendship, as much or more friendship and mutual esteem as he had ever shared with Diana, though less closeness and intimacy, for she in no way needed him. Marriage to Stephen Maturin served no compelling interest for her and marriage was, as she had explicitly told him, anathema to her. It was a puzzle, what he might say and do that would change the fundamental premises of this equation for her to arrive at a different conclusion.

Why did he want to marry Christine Wood so very much, he thought. Why should they not just remain as they were, especially in view of his assurances to her that there need be no necessary increase in the intimacy between them? Such would be a most irregular arrangement, he thought, a sort of amourous purgatory.

Without marriage, they could have no real life together. There would be no understanding, no commitment, no commitment to Brigid as well as not to himself. Then, too, he thought her reluctance and aversion to greater intimacy would surely be lessened over time. She was still young enough that they might have a child together. Her brother would be her natural companion and protector if he, himself, should be away, should Jack be given another commission. There was not one particle of the libertine in Stephen Maturin, not one iota. One could not honourably have a lady in one's life without marriage, not really. He wanted marriage to the right lady and he was utterly convinced that Christine Wood was the right lady. They were so well-suited and in addition, no possibility of being supplanted would ever exist should they wed.

He decided before he was halfway to the Grapes that he would pack his bag and leave for Woolcombe as soon as he might. He had not seen his daughter in over four months.

He walked faster, turning over thoughts of Jack in his mind. How singular their friendship, he thought, how very singular all the circumstances were. The attachment, the connexion, the manner in which they were cleaved to each other substantially without a formally articulated understanding; the tacit agreements between them, all arrived at without words ever having been spoken. He thought of how Diana used to goad him by saying sarcastically that clearly, Jack was his real spouse, his lord and and master, his eternal true love and that she was just pretending at the part. Strangely, there was an element of truth to it. He would lay down his own life without hesitation for Jack Aubrey as Jack had and would for Stephen, himself. Without ceremony, without rings, without words, they were sealed unto each other, as they had been from that moment at the Grapes fifteen years beforehand. Come what may, there would never be anyone else, for the attachment was born of shared experiences, not merely their persons. Wives, sweethearts, mistresses; it was all of no significance. What they did together, what was engendered between them, the risks they both took were the sacrament between them. They had their separate lives, careers, aspirations, goals, all that parted them, occasionally for many months at a time, had faced circumstances whilst together that made any intimacy whatever impossible for months but they endured; always there was the coming together again inevitably, the mutual hunger and desire, the tenderness expressed, the commitment deeper than any repeated words in a church. He closed his eyes for a moment and visions of being in bed with Jack came to him, images came to mind of what they had done, how he had felt and what he had thought and as he hurried towards the Grapes, he felt that ache of desire to see Jack fill his entire being once more.

 

Woolcombe

19 May 1820

  
As Stephen walked up the dark path on the grounds of Woolcombe, headed for the deserted east wing of the great house, he heard Jack's voice, soothingly tender and low coming from inside the stables, from which a dim light spilled out the open door. He looked in the doorway and saw Jack standing in his ancient buff Nankeen trousers and shirt sleeves, a pair of very old Hessian boots on his feet as he stood looking into one of the stalls, his long hair loose across his shoulders. Stephen called out, "Hola, Jack!"  softly so as to not startle him and walked in, his own boots covered with mud from his very long walk of the past several hours. it was very late, near two a.m.

 "Why, Stephen, there you are!" Jack cried with obvious delight. "What a capital surprise. You are come home at last, I find. How do you do? My, you gave me a start. I was afraid you were a deer thief. Not that I mind so very much, but I should flog anyone who disturbs poor dear Hebe here. I am checking on her now, for as you can plainly see, she is about to foal at any moment," Jack said, motioning towards the beautiful bay mare in the very large loose box, heavily pregnant. She was one of Diana's Arabians, a filly out of Lalla, foaled right before Diana’s death. Jack had become extremely fond of her since coming home and he had her bred the year before. He held up the dark lantern, half-shuttered, that Stephen might see her better. Hebe saw and scented him and nickered in the pleasure of recognition, raising her head in greeting. Stephen came to the stall and reached up to scratch her ears.

“Good evening to you, Hebe, my dear. My, but you are in fine looks,” he said affectionately and in pleasurable response she nudged his neck with her nose. Stephen put his bag down and left her to embrace Jack. As they were alone and it was the middle of the night, Jack kissed him without restraint, smiling as he did so.

"Pray, forgive me, Jack, I had no notion of disturbing anyone at this late hour, I thought I should sneak like a thief in the night to my room and greet you in the morning."

"However did you come so late?"

"I took that miserable post chaise at Andover and the axle broke past Salisbury and could not be mended. I walked the rest of the way, I believe the post-boy said it was above seventeen miles to get here. I thought I should not have to walk the entire way, but I was mistaken, I find.  I should have been here more than five hours ago. I left Basingstoke at seven o'clock in the morning," Stephen said, rubbing his shoulder, for the walk had not troubled him, but he would have brought a lighter bag had he known. His other baggage would be delivered in the morrow.

"Oh, dear Lord, my poor old Stephen, no wonder you appear completely fagged out. You should have stayed at the inn in the village and come up in the morning," Jack said, with great concern.

"They were closed up for the night. The walk did me good; I have been altogether too shut up as of late. I just returned from Ireland."

"Shall we go inside and have some port and cheese before retiring? You must be clemmed," Jack said, yawning.

"Let me have a look at Hebe first. How is Brigid?" Stephen said going in the stall and looking at the mare's face.

"Splendid. She's a regular headpiece, Stephen. Lord, you shall have to hear her recitation in French and Latin. She translated quite a bit of French for me the other day, would you credit it? She makes my offspring look like utter simpletons. I think she is every bit as clever as Queeney was as a child. Ah well, they are all acorns from their respective _paters familiaeses_ , eh?" Jack said and he laughed.

"I am gladdened to learn that she applies herself. She is blessed, for Diana was quite the linguist," Stephen said. He looked in Hebe's mouth and then took her pulse at the mandibular artery and breathed in her nose reassuringly.

"Sophie suggested we all go to Bath for a month, for Brigid's birthday. They shall be so happy that you might join us." A dark cloud passed over Stephen's face.

"Alas, Jack, I cannot. I am leaving for Barcelona in a week's time with the blessing."

"But you are only just home," Jack cried. "Surely you will not leave us so soon."

"I fear it was wretchedly poor planning on my part," Stephen said, laying his hand on Hebe's belly and feeling the foal within her.

"Can you refund the ticket?"

"Tickets and no, I cannot. In addition, I made all sorts of arrangements," Jack raised an eyebrow. Stephen never made any sort of arrangements, preferring spur of the moment, serendipitous spontaneity to any planning, for he said circumstances varied so frequently, it was a waste, unless it was absolutely necessary. "The money is a trifling matter but I cannot possibly be so boorish as to disappoint those who have gone out of their way to accommodate me. I am sorry, Jack. I regret it now. I should infinitely prefer to go to Bath with you and Sophie and Brigid." Seeing the expression on his face, Jack regretted mentioning Bath.

"Why regret it? Spain is far finer than a trip to Bath. I should infinitely prefer Spain to Bath."

"I had not planned on travelling alone and I shall be," Stephen said, leaving the stall. "I asked Mrs Wood yesterday if we might marry next week and depart for Spain as a honeymoon and our engagement, such as it was, is now broken. It was all a misunderstanding on my part. It is entirely my fault; she is utterly blameless. Pray do not think any less of her." Jack was astonished. He knew how Stephen detested expressions of sympathy or anything like it, so he looked at Hebe. "I so wish we were in the Savoy now, instead of being here."

"We might go to your room,"  Jack said, very quietly. Stephen was amazed. They had never lain together in any residence of Jack's. Never in life would he ever have suggested such a thing. Still, Stephen's guest bed chamber door locked from both the inside and the outside, for Stephen had stored exceedingly rare and delicate specimens within the room that he feared the destruction of by curious little hands would propel him into a near homicidal rage, and the most valuable of Diana's remaining jewels were there as well, locked in a trunk that was screwed into the floor.

"Hebe?"

"I will come back to her in a few hours," Jack said, picking up Stephen's bag and taking his hand. They walked slowly back to the wing of the house where Stephen's room was and Jack took the key that was hidden on top of the door jamb and unlocked and opened the door. They went in and closed the door, taking their boots off with sighs of relief. It was quite cool in the room, as it had been closed up for more than three months, the bed made for the winter with an additional three thick wool blankets. The grate was bare, no wood having been laid since it was last cleaned out.

"Shall I light the lamp or a candle?" Jack said. "Or is this enough light?" he said, gesturing to the lantern.

"Tis well enough," Stephen said, turning down the blankets before sitting down on the bed and looking up at Jack, who locked the door and then sat next to him. "You astonish me, Jack. I never thought that..." Jack leaned forward and kissed him, cutting off his thought. "Never once at Ashgrove. Never in life, never in almost ten years."

"Woolcombe is far larger than Ashgrove. No one is in this wing.  Sophie will not be troubled if I am out the entire night; indeed, she is expecting it. You are about to leave for how many months?"

"About four."

"Stephen, I have not seen you in London in over six months' time. My God, I have missed you so," Jack said. "This peace business is damnably hard on a friendship."

"So it is, joy," Stephen said, embracing Jack around the neck and they reclined onto the bed as they kissed, his own heart racing. Jack's hands trembled as he untied Stephen's neckcloth and he leaned forward, kissing Stephen's neck.

"Dear Lord, I missed you so. Oh, Stephen, pray do not let us be apart this long again, my love," Jack said, undressing him as he kissed him. "It is the hardest part of being on land so long, of being at home that I see so very little of you these days. So many times I have wanted to go to London and I had no idea if you were still there and so I did not, for fear of going two hundred and fifty miles for naught. May we not appoint a date every month, Stephen, to meet at the Grapes?" Stephen reached into Jack's Nankeen trousers and loosened the girth.

"Forgive me, Jack, pray do forgive me," he said as Jack gasped, Stephen's hand having made its way into his small clothes. "I have been distracted by ten thousand inconsequential minutiae," Stephen said, pushing Jack's trousers and small clothes down so that he might reach his unencumbered prick. Jack trembled all over as he strained to undress Stephen further. Stephen stopped to allow Jack to pull his breeches off, thinking "He trembles so, as he did the first time that we were together. Perhaps the long lapse, perhaps the strangeness of us being together in his own house." He kissed Jack hard and then Jack sat up in the bed.

"The oil? Have you any in here? Sweet oil, coconut, tallow, spermaceti oil, indeed, anything?" Jack said, perturbed. Stephen considered of it, put his spectacles back on and picked up the lantern, standing in his unbuttoned shirt and nothing else, opening the shutters and looked through a curious cabinet of two dozen tiny drawers that had been placed on a dresser. Finally, he pulled out a very small jar and opened it, smelling it.

"The last of my triple refined coconut oil is here. There is far more than enough." He returned with it to the bed and Jack embraced him.

"I so wish we were at sea," Jack said, holding him and kissing his shoulders. Stephen smiled.

 "At least it is a real bed, _a chuisle_. There is that."

 "We might go up to Shelmerston and see _Surprise_ in two days' time and spend the night."

"Alas, I doubt I have enough time for that. I leave from Portsmouth in six days. My trunk is on its way here. Now tell me your dearest desire, Jack, and whether tis truly more blessed to give than to receive."

"Why, both, of course," Jack said, reddening.

"You are such a fine, greedy sanguine fellow. Are you quite up to such a plan?"

"I have attained my second wind, brother," Jack said, looking at his particular friend with an intensity Stephen found extremely gratifying.

"It is very late," Stephen said.

"Pray forgive me, I forget myself, soul," Jack said. "You must be exhausted."

"Only thinking of seeing you invigorated me," Stephen said, pulling the blankets and sheets around the both of them and kissing him. "Tell me what you wish," he said very softly in Jack's ear.

"Mingle your soul with mine now," Jack said, stroking his face.

"Nothing should make me happier," Stephen said, kissing his neck and so it was.

Afterwards, Stephen blew out the lantern and they lay in each other's arms, barely able to speak in their post-coital somnolence, Stephen stroking Jack's hair.

"Stephen, shall I go then to Barcelona with you?" Jack said, falling asleep.

"I should like that of all things, joy," Stephen said, listening to the rain beginning to fall as he fell asleep in Jack's arms.

  
  
  
  
It rained all day long. Stephen came back from his rainy walk in Simmon's Lea in the early afternoon with only wet feet as he had taken Jack’s umbrella with him. He went to the main house and dried his feet, changing into a pair of slippers. Brigid's room was now in the main house since Diana had died.

He found Brigid lying in her bed reading. It was still raining out and she had apparently gotten soaked, for her hair was still wet and she was attired in a nightdress and dressing gown. He looked at her face before she realised he was in the room and saw that she was frowning, the right side tensed, particularly around her eye. She turned and looked at him. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright.

“Papa!” she said, jumping up and he embraced her and came and sat on her bed, pulling her into his lap and kissing her. “Oh, Papa, I am so happy to see you,” she said and whispered to him in Irish, “Pray close the door, Papa.” He got up and closed the door and came back and held her.

“How do you do, my great girl? You are so very grown up,” Stephen said, looking at her with pleasure. Her face was lengthening, she had lost one of her lower front teeth, the first of her milk teeth to go.

“I am fine,  Papa,” she said, but he noticed that she looked as though she had a headache, for she rubbed her eye and her forehead. He reached into his pocket and gave her a parcel and she unwrapped it eagerly. It was a golden cross on a chain.

“This is for your first communion, _a chuisle mo chroi,_ ” he said, kissing her. “You are almost ready to make your first communion, I believe and so, we shall talk about school.”

“School?” Brigid said, frowning.

“Yes. You are a great girl now, you are now seven years old and it is time for you to go to school. I thought I should let you choose whether you would prefer to go to school in Paris, as your mamma did or Dublin or in Barcelona. I know excellent schools in all three.” She looked at him and tears filled her eyes and she stood up and moved around him and lay down on her bed, burying her face in her pillow, weeping as silently as she might. Stephen was taken aback. He had almost never seen her cry, she was preternaturally stoic, much as he himself had been as a child. He had never seen her weep over Diana’s death, over virtually anything.  “Brigid, my love, pray do not weep.”

“Is this because of the butcher?” the child said, looking up at him for a second.

“The butcher? What butcher? No.”

“Does the Admiral want to send me away?”

“No, child, of course not, no!” Stephen said, stroking her hair. “No, my darling, no one is sending you away. You are a big girl now and it is time for you to have a proper education. That is my meaning. It is time for you to go to the sisters that you may learn some of what there is to learn, as I did myself when I was your age and I went to school with the holy fathers in Barcelona.” She wept in her pillow anew, silently. “Brigid, tell me what is wrong.”

“Would Padeen go with me?”

“No,” Stephen said.

“Then I do not wish to go away,” she said and buried her face in her pillow again. Her father sat speechless as she wept. Finally, he leant forward and kissing and caressing her, murmuring to her in Irish until she ceased weeping for she had fallen asleep.

He found Jack in his study, just down the hall, reading the _Naval Gazette_ with a glass of sherry.

“Ah, Stephen, you are back at last!” Jack said, delighted to see him. “How do you do, brother? How was your walk? You must have some of this absolutely capital sherry. Heneage sent it to me last week, an entire pipe of it."

“Very well, Jack, I thank you. How are you?”

“Capital. I have the drollest story to tell you, I just remembered it. Have you seen Brigid yet?”

“Yes, in her room. She was lying in her nightclothes, reading. What story?” Jack related the story of how Brigid had thrashed the butcher's boy. Stephen listened carefully, frowning.

"I think that explains her outburst -- she must have thought that I said what I did in order for her to be punished."

"Why? What did you say?"

"I suggested that we might talk about her going away to school. I thought in terms of a very fine convent school, either in Dublin or Paris or Barcelona."  Jack said nothing. It was, of course, Stephen's prerogative to educate his daughter as he saw fit, but Jack found himself far more stricken at the idea of her leaving than he had at the thought of any of his own children going away. He liked her very much; he liked having her at Woolcombe. He knew Sophie would be greatly saddened by absence as well. He would never be so presumptuous as to weigh in with what he thought about the matter, for he knew that Stephen must resent it extremely, especially given the religious aspect of it, as his own children had barely seen the inside of a church, not at all since Mrs Williams had died. He realised he had averted his gaze from Stephen, had put on his neutral face and that Stephen was now looking at him somewhat sharply.

"I hope you do not believe in any way that I was annoyed or put out by what happened with the butcher," Jack said, finally. "I am prodigious fond of her, Stephen. Sophie is as well. She is greatly attached to her, indeed, sometimes I think more than to -- well, very greatly attached indeed."

"I am highly gratified by your good opinion of her, brother,"  Stephen said. "The credit must go largely to Sophie. She has been the single most concerned party, since Clarissa married. And Padeen of course." Again, Jack felt a pang. It was a peculiar situation; Padeen was Stephen's servant, not his own, but Padeen had been living at Woolcombe since virtually the entire time that Jack and Sophie had moved from Ashgrove. Jack provided room, board and pocket money in addition to what Stephen paid him, but he was properly Stephen's servant, as much as Jack did not wish to lose him. Padeen had a great deal of gratitude to Jack Aubrey, gratitude and loyalty to him second only to what Padeen held for Stephen himself, for he understood that Jack was solely responsible for removing him from New South Wales. Yes, it was the Doctor dear who had come and saved him in his sufferings, had asked his particular friend to be the means, had taken him to Spain to protect him and had secured a pardon, but Padeen was no fool and he had an understanding of how Jack Aubrey had enabled all of it to take place. Stephen was his saviour, Padeen would do anything for him; he understood it was the case that the Admiral had saved Stephen's life repeatedly and that their attachment was greater than any two people he had ever seen. He understood that he owed his own life to the attachment of Jack Aubrey to Stephen Maturin and so he loved Jack Aubrey as well, indeed as much or more than Killick did.

The bell rang, signifying dinner time and Jack and Stephen rose, put on their coats and walked down to the dining room.

Sophie embraced Stephen. He apologised for not having seen her earlier in the morning and she waved away his apology as she had been very busy that morning. They sat down and no Brigid appeared so Sophie asked Killick to go and fetch her from her room.

They were tucking into the first course, an oxtail soup, when Killick returned, reporting that he could not wake her and that she appeared feverish. Sophie excused herself and returned five minutes later.

"Stephen, she is very febrile. You should go see her directly after dinner."

“Was she out in the rain?” Stephen said. “Her hair was very wet when I saw her an hour ago.”

“She was, briefly. She ran down to the stables to see Hebe’s new filly, very early this morning,” Jack said. “She was not so very wet when I saw her there.”

“She was drenched when she came in, Jack.” Sophie said. “I had to make her take her things off in the kitchen and brought her towels. She had a cup of tea and then said she was tired and went back to her room in her dressing gown.

Stephen went up to see her and found her burning up with fever when he kissed her forehead. He called for a basin of cold water to sponge her head and neck with and took her pulse. Children were not as a rule a part of his practice and in general, he disliked treating them, finding their outcomes far more wildly unpredictable than those of adults. The resilience of youth was responsible for them surviving unbelievable degrees of rapid, severe illness, but they had a tendency to die quickly and unpredictably as well. He had seen them live when he thought death inevitable and die without any warning, so Brigid's sudden illness alarmed him. He called for broth and started examining her. He tried to wake her and could not. Her face was very flushed, her eyes red, the lids puffy with marked ptosis. Most troubling, her breathing was increasingly marked by stridor. He did not like it. He did not like it at all and he sent for Padeen and had Padeen fetch his bag from his room and a basin.

"Padeen, I must bleed her behind the ears. Doing it now may nip this illness in the bud, with the blessing. Might you hold the basin and steady her head?" Padeen nodded and Stephen bled her four ounces on the right side and four ounces on the left. She wept during the whole process and babbled in delirium. Padeen wept silently  as well. He took the basin away and Stephen wiped her face. She opened her eyes.

"Papa, I was a very wicked, froward girl," she said. "Is that why I must be punished?"

“No one shall punish you, _a chuisle,_ ” he said tenderly.

"I did a very bad thing," she said and she wept more.

"My dearest love, no. Surely not," Stephen said, leaning forward and kissing her forehead.

"I did, Papa, and I am so ashamed." She wept until she fell asleep. She cried out and babbled in her sleep. Stephen sat with her for four hours, reading until Sophie sent Padeen back up to relieve him. Padeen sat on the floor next to the head of Brigid's bed, tears falling whilst Stephen went to speak to Sophie about Brigid's general condition in the previous few days, her diet and how wet she had gotten that morning. He found she had eaten very little the previous day and not had any breakfast that morning.

At supper time, Sophie went to Stephen and told him that Killick would be serving them in Jack's study; she would stay with Brigid as long as he wished. He and Jack ate and played music, but Stephen's heart was not in it. It was a peculiar situation for him, for he had no work nor duty to distract him. Brigid was a very healthy child and he had not many occasions to see her ill, having been away so much. He knew of no specialist to call for in the immediate Dorsetshire area -- the Aubreys looked to him, primarily, to be physicked and George had never had a severe illness the entire time he had been in Woolcombe. The twins had never needed a physician whilst they were at Woolcombe.

He went back to sit with her at ten p.m. She was more febrile still and moaned in pain in her sleep four hours later. He endeavoured to wake her in order to get her to drink. He roused her sufficiently that she could be propped up with the pillows but she was too weak to hold the silver cup and he held it to her lips and prayed silently that this might be the crisis, that she would turn the corner shortly, for she was so weak and had become so debilitated so very quickly that it frightened him. He had seen similar cases where children had died overnight. He put the cup down, unbuttoned her nightdress and examined her again, feeling the glands swollen in her neck and armpits, took her pulse and found it fast.  There was, as far as he could determine, no essential lesion, but she was so exhausted it was difficult for her to keep her eyes open.  He kissed her forehead and she opened her eyes and looked into his, so very like her own.

"Papa, pray tell Padeen that I ask his pardon," Brigid said.

"Why do you ask his pardon, my dearest love?" Her lip trembled.

"I was very wicked, Papa and I made him cry."

"How, my sweet?" She started weeping again, wiped her tears away and struggled to speak.

"I did what the bad people did and he remembered them." Brigid said. "And I gave him such sorrow and it was so very wicked of me." She said and she sobbed in her pillow. He could get nothing further from her, for she wept until she fell asleep.

When she had fallen asleep, he went downstairs and found Killick in the kitchen talking with cook, bade him find Padeen to send him up to Brigid's room as soon as possible, that the Doctor would be waiting for him there.

Padeen appeared five minutes after Stephen had returned to his daughter's room and Stephen stepped into the hall with him, pulling the door shut behind him.

"Padeen, my little Bridie is very ill," Stephen said in Irish. There was a lump in his throat. "What happened between the two of you? She is very aggrieved, for she said she made you weep." Padeen looked stricken.

"Your honour, my Brideen is such a good girl. I could not help it, sir. It was not her fault."

"What exactly happened?" Stephen said. "You must tell me what happened, Padeen." Padeen was so upset that the power of speech momentarily left him. He stuttered and stammered until he nearly choked. Stephen had seen him thus before and he sat patiently, his face as bland as he could make it, for he knew that any expression of impatience made it worse. Finally, Padeen managed to pull himself together and stammered out an answer.

"She beat that boy, your honour, the butcher's boy, and then she wept for she was so angry that I took her away. I told her she must never do that ever again, sir, because that was what the wicked people do. She said she did not care and she did not believe me and then I took off my shirt and I showed her my back and I could not stop it, your honour. I could not stop and it frightened her and she ran away." What Padeen could not stop then were his tears, and now too, they slid down his face, unwanted, unbidden and he struggled to retain any composure.

Padeen’s tolerance for seeing anyone being flogged had been destroyed by his own experience in New South Wales; Stephen had prevailed upon Jack to have him excused from witnessing punishment ever after on their way home from the colony. The many hundreds of scars that covered his back were the testimony to the immense brutality that he had endured, that had almost extinguished his life. He could not stand to see a human being strike another human being, not outside the situation of an actual battle. Stephen's threat to Mrs Williams about Padeen upon hearing of her interview with Brigid had not been an idle one. He could not imagine what Padeen would have done had he seen Mrs Williams hectoring Brigid, let alone striking her.

It had never occurred to Stephen what it would do to Padeen to see his little Brideen strike another human being. It had never occurred to Stephen himself that his placid little creature of a daughter could be driven to such fury that she would attempt to flog anyone, let alone a much older youth, who must have seemed an adult to her. He felt a deep sympathy for Padeen and how horrifying the sight must have been for him, the connotations it would bring to mind, the realisation that as absurd as it was, the odious butcher’s boy was a victim, unable to defend himself against a little girl, a child, the guest of the lord of the manor. He touched Padeen's shoulder and gave him a handkerchief and Padeen mopped his eyes and nose.

"Padeen, you must tell her now that you forgive her," Stephen said. "Let us go and you tell her now. Tell her she did you no harm." They went back into the room. Her stridor had increased. "Help me elevate her head, if you please,"  Stephen said and they shifted her.  
  
Brigid groaned and cried out, "Don't let them take me away, Papa! Please don't!" She sobbed and he held her, stroking her hair.

“No one shall take you away, honey,” Stephen said, kissing her. “No one ever shall, my love. Never in life.”

“A very cross old lady said that they would, Papa, she did,” Brigid said and she clung to his neck. “She said she should shake me hard and said they should take me far, far away,” she wept. He held her close to him and thought for that moment how very glad he was that Mrs Williams was already dead.

"No, my, darling, no, never.  No one ever shall, my love. Padeen is here, sweetheart, right here," Stephen said in Irish. He motioned Padeen to come and sit next to her on the bed and rose that he might, moving to the foot of the bed.

"Brideen, oh my Breed,"  Padeen said in Irish, "forgive me my little Bridie, my sweet, good Bridie; thou must forgive thy Padeen."

"Padeen, I am sorry..." she said weeping.

"Pray do not weep my Brideen, my golden lamb, may God and Mary and Patrick bless thee, my love," Padeen said, his own eyes filling with tears. "Thou art a good girl and did nothing to thy Padeen. It is I who ask thy pardon. Pray forgivest me, child that we may go out and drive the dog cart once more and find thy tiny conies and fetch the eggs for the Admiral's lady. If thou forgivest me, then all will be forgotten, sweetheart, forgiven and forgotten, my dear joy.” He took her in his arms and whispered in her ear and she shook her head to say yes and he tenderly laid her upon her pillow. She yawned and took Padeen’s hand.

"Tell me the story, again, dear Padeen, the story thou always tellest me when I am sick," Brigid said, sleepily.

Padeen then told her the story, speaking softly in his sweet Munster Irish. Stephen sat listening, intent, recognising much of it from long, long ago, his own earliest childhood, when Bridie Coolan had told him a variation on the same tale of the Blessed Mother, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the fairies and the healing kiss. In the version Stephen vaguely recalled, it was a child's mother or his nurse who could impart the healing kiss, as well as any child who had been so kissed. He suddenly recalled the dimmest memory of kissing Bridie's baby, Séamus, on the forehead to transmit the healing kiss when he himself was about five.

Padeen's version involved Saint Brigid, the patron saint of babies and children, Saint Patrick as well as priests and doctors and he explained to Brigid that Stephen had given him the healing kiss in the hospital on the back of his head when he had almost died in New South Wales. Padeen had received it as well from his own mother and thus he would again do the same for her. He made the extended sign of the Holy Cross upon her, first upon her forehead, then her lips, then her chest and shoulders, then across her entire person, ending by kissing her forehead, blessing her, holding her hands in his as he said an Ave Maria.

“Papa, do kiss me again, give me thy healing kiss,” Brigid said in Irish and Stephen leaned forward, kissing her forehead and she closed her eyes and fell asleep. 

“Your honour, shall I stay with her now?”

“No, Padeen. I will rest here with her,” Stephen said. “You go and rest now. With the blessing, she may improve in the morrow,” he said, feeling that he had never felt so inadequate to the task of thanking another man. He fell asleep beside her, a book in hand as the candle guttered.

He opened his eyes in the early morning light and saw Sophie in her dressing gown gazing into his face as he lay next to his daughter. She held her finger to her lips.

“Her fever has broken, Stephen,” she whispered. He reached over and felt her head, damp and cooler, though still hot. The stridor of her breathing had diminished significantly. "I pray we may already be out of the woods. She just drank two  cups full of water and fell asleep again."

"God save that we may," he said, getting up from the bed and covering Brigid lightly with the blanket. They left her room, closing the door behind them.

"Should you like to go sleep in George's bed? It is so much closer than your room. You may sleep as long as you wish today, Stephen; Padeen and I shall nurse her today."

"That is most kind of you, my dear." She looked at him with a hint of apprehension.

"Stephen, did you think of sending her away to school?" Sophie said.

"Yes, I did."

"But, why? I do not mean to be impertinent, Stephen, pray forgive me, but why now, why so suddenly?  We are perfectly happy to have her here until she marries, if you so agree. I told you so many years ago, this is your home, your home and Brigid's home. You have never mentioned it before. Are you not happy with her schooling? Would you prefer us to seek more learned tutors and stricter tutelage?"

"No, Sophie, it is not that," Stephen said, rubbing his eyes. "Might we go sit in Jack's study for a moment?" They went in and sat down at the chairs away from his desk. Stephen picked up a telescope Jack had left on a table and looked at it.

"I had thought that Brigid and I would, this year, be decamped more or less permanently to Medenham," Stephen said. Sophie coloured. "Alas, it shall not be so and thus, this being the case, I thought this an opportune moment for Brigid to start her formal schooling, much as I did at her age. After this incident, though, I fear I have been grossly imprudent. I forget how delicate her state was when we finally returned from the South Seas, when I first saw her. I underestimated her general sensibility, her tenderness. I discounted what impact losing Diana and then Clarissa must have had on her. I fear my even mentioning it violently unsettled her humours and her system was taxed to the limit because of my thoughtless words. You and Padeen are the only stability in her life. I am afraid that I shall continue to impose upon you, Sophie, my dear, on your good graces for the foreseeable future."

Sophie's face looked as though she had been struck and she blinked hard, remembering it was Stephen and so she held her tongue, did not fly out at him asking him how could he say such heartless words to her and had she been such a poor friend to him over the last eighteen years? Did he not know that she loved Brigid as much as any one of her own children and that she had been an immense comfort to her, to both Jack and her? Could he really not know that he was as much family to her as her own sisters and more than her surviving brother-in-law? She said none of this, thinking of his heartbreak. Instead she took his hands in hers. "If you could stay in our house for all of eternity, it would never be an imposition," Sophie said, "for we love you so, dear Stephen. I am so glad Jack might go with you to Barcelona now. It shall do him such good. Cissy is coming to Woolcombe and then we shall take Brigid to Bath for her birthday with Padeen, provided she has recovered sufficiently.”  
  
He was deeply moved by her words, more deeply than the first time she had told him that Woolcombe was to be his home as long as he wished, when he had returned immediately after Diana’s death."Come downstairs and let me have breakfast set out for you, if you might eat now. The rain has stopped, it looks as though it shall be a very fine day. Jack is out with Hebe's filly now and will come in for breakfast. He wishes that you might suggest a name for her," Sophie said, smiling and she rose and took his hand and they walked down to the sun-filled breakfast room.

 


End file.
